Work group

The vigilance of those mistaken for migrants in the U.S.-Mexican border area

This project examines constellations of vigilance in the border city of San Diego, Southern California: In the context of rising anti-immigrant and anti-Latinx sentiment in the U.S., which enables racist discrimination and violence, we will analyze the strategies of vigilance employed by individuals, who are perceived as undocumented immigrants and thus expect to experience racialized discrimination. Do these phenotypical “strangers” respond to overlapping forms of vertical state surveillance and horizontal citizens’ vigilantism by employing practices of vigilance to resist, internalise, or avoid racism? In what ways are cultures of vigilance inflected by phenotype, ethnic belonging, gender, age, and class? More generally, what kind of social relating does vigilance foster?We initially define vigilance as a form of watchfulness which is motivated by internalised social values and commitments, which may be accompanied by concrete actions towards protecting those values, particularly in a context of uncertainty. Thus, vigilance is an assemblage of moral sentiments, feelings of belonging, heightened attention, and practice, situated in specific socio-political contexts, concrete spaces, and technologies which enable it. Often perceived as being integral to good citizenship, vigilance profoundly shapes individual and collective ways of being in the world: In what ways is vigilance transforming notions of citizenship and illegality, sociality and belonging among border residents in San Diego?

This 4-year project is hosted at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 1369) “Cultures of Vigilance: Transformations. Spaces. Techniques.”

Book Chapters

2019: “The cosmopolitics of rights and violence in Central Mexico,” in Anthropological contributions for sustainable futures: Research and interventions in the fields of environmental needs, gender equity, human rights and knowledge in South America and the United Kingdom, ed. by S. Alzugaray and J. Taks, pp. 12-15. Montevideo: University of the Republic of Uruguay Press. https://www.fhuce.edu.uy/images/comunicacion/publicaciones/Taks-Alzugaray-2019-06-23-todo.pdf

Academic Career

03/2019-08/2019: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Citizenship, Civil Society, and Rule of Law, University of Aberdeen (UK): Project, „Activism in Regions of Crime-Related Violence and Fragility“